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Transcripts: KOMA concerns raised before dinners

Governor's staff sought legal advice before inviting legislators

Members of Gov. Sam Brownback's staff sought at least three legal opinions before hosting a series of legislative committees for dinners in January, according to transcripts from Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor's Kansas Open Meetings Act investigation.

After six months of investigation, Taylor's office determined last week that the dinners constituted "technical" violations of KOMA, but they weren’t intentional and there wasn’t enough evidence to take the dozens of legislators involved to court.

Brownback and his staff maintained throughout the investigation that the dinners were within the law, noting that Brownback himself isn’t subject to KOMA and legislators were warned at the dinners not to have any policy discussion that would rise to the level of a violation.

In transcripts of interviews performed by assistant district attorneys Matt Patterson and J. Todd Hiatt, Brownback's legislative liaisons, Tim Shallenburger and Peter Northcott said that they attempted to vet the legality of the dinners beforehand with the governor's chief counsel, Caleb Stegall, the House of Representatives' chief clerk and a member of the Office of the Revisor.

In his interview, Shallenburger, a former Kansas House Speaker, says it was his idea to invite legislators out to dinner by committee, a departure from the previous year and previous governors.

Shallenburger told prosecutors that the previous year some legislators missed out on their visit to Cedar Crest because of committee commitments.

"And so to avoid something of that (nature) and merely for social purposes we decided — I decided that we'd have — if we did it by committees we'd at least know the committees wouldn't be having another social event that night," Shallenburger said, according to the transcript.

Brownback hosted Republican members of 13 committees at seven dinners, occasionally bringing together two or three committees with related policy missions.

Shallenburger told prosecutors that format did raise KOMA questions for him — questions that he initially took to Stegall. The two of them then went to Susan Kannarr, the House's chief clerk, to get her opinion on whether committees fall under KOMA.

"I think she checked and said yes, yes, they are so you can't — they can't discuss committee action," Shallenburger said, according to his transcript. "We didn't think that was a problem. She went on to say, you know, lobbyists take whole committees out all the time."

Northcott, who works under Shallenburger, recalled the conversation similarly during his interview with prosecutors.

"I recall that he asked her in her opinion if she thought that that would be a violation of open meetings and she said no because it's a common practice for lobbyists to take out whole committees at a time, as long as, 'um, certain lines were not crossed," Northcott said. "And I believe after that point, 'um, she called down to the Revisor's Office and her opinion was concurred upon by somebody from the Revisor's Office."

Kannarr, reached by phone this week, said Hiatt contacted her during the investigation to inform her that her name popped up, but she hadn’t seen the transcripts.

After reviewing the portions of them that pertained to her she said her recollection of the now months-old conversation was slightly different.

"These (dinners) were all at this point, theoretical, and it wasn't even that they were going to invite a committee, it was 'we're going to invite legislators,' " said Kannarr, who added that she prefers to stay out of the media.

Kannarr said she may have told Shallenburger about lobbyists taking committees out to dinner, but as a former House member himself that would have been something he already knew.

Kannarr is a lawyer, but said she has no expertise in KOMA and hasn’t read the statute. For expert legal advice on KOMA she would rely on the Revisor of Statutes or the Kansas Attorney General's Office.

She said that when Shallenburger came to her she likely called Mary Torrence, the head of the revisor's office, a team of lawyers who help legislators write bills.

Torrence, reached by phone this week, said she didn’t recall giving legal advice about committees being invited to Cedar Crest. She said that if she had been told the dinners would include the governor outlining his policy agenda and then taking questions from legislators, she would have advised that KOMA applied.

"I think we would have said, well that’s a committee meeting," Torrence said.

Torrence said her office would also have sought the wisdom of the Attorney General's Office if there was any question.

"They’re the ones who kind of know the subject area well," Torrence said.

The governor's office said it would have no further comment on the dinners now that the district attorney considered the matter closed.